Watchdog Exposes How Hegseth Endangered Troops’ Lives in Signalgate

A bad week has gotten even worse for Pete Hegseth, as a new watchdog report from the Pentagon inspector general’s office finds that the defense secretary directly endangered U.S. troops when he used the Signal messaging app to discuss sensitive plans to bomb the Houthi rebels in Yemen back in March.

Sources told CNN that the classified report details Hegseth’s lack of urgency and seriousness in speaking freely on the public messaging app about active U.S. war plans, updates, and even when “the first bombs will drop.”

It is unclear if any of the information was properly declassified before it was put on Signal—and before The Atlanticeditor Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to the chat. As CNN reported, Hegseth claimed he declassified all the info after the messages became public, but no such documentation exists.

A classified version of the inspector general’s report was sent to Congress on Tuesday, with an unclassified version set to drop on Thursday.

This report comes in the midst of another controversy for Hegseth in which he is currently attempting to shift blame for a boat bombing double strike that killed two survivors—a potential war crime—away from himself and onto Admiral Frank Bradley.

At Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Hegseth claimed that he didn’t know there were survivors after the first strike, adding that the “fog of war” would’ve made it difficult to determine if anyone had survived—a response both the left and right is finding to be insufficient.

“This week has made it abundantly clear that Pete Hegseth should not be in charge of the most powerful military on Earth,” podcaster Jon Favreau wrote on X.